


instincts (fight or flight)

by VictoriaG16



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Biracial Character, Character Study, Gen, Identity Issues, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 01:59:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4286325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaG16/pseuds/VictoriaG16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can’t decide if you want to throw a punch or take off. Maybe you’ll settle for somewhere in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	instincts (fight or flight)

**Author's Note:**

> since i finished txf, i realized that i hadn't watched any voyager in wayyyyy too long. three s1 eps later, i'm once again overidentifying with b'elanna and aggressively projecting. :)
> 
> and this time around i realized that she's both fighting and fleeing and i was like "this is fuckin poetic genius man, i need to do a shitty character study fic asap."
> 
> takes place pre-series, during her academy and maquis days.

You’re torn between two instincts: fight or flight. Do you run? Do you stand your ground? Your Klingon blood burns hot and firey and it’s hard to ignore, but your human side is just as fierce, the subtle kind of stubborn that won’t stay down.

The Klingon in you, damn your mother, doesn’t even consider flight. Fighting is always the answer for that particular half of you. All fists, all fury, all violence. You don’t know whether you should love it for its passion and resolve or hate it for its emotionalism and stubbornness. You stick with being proud of it on the inside and ashamed on the outside.

Whatever human remains in you just wants to survive. And survive you have; through your father’s abandonment and your hellish school years, you have endured. You have escaped a lot of pain that you would have otherwise suffered and for that, you are thankful. But you feel ashamed, ashamed that you do want to run, that you like that part of yourself better.

You can’t decide if you want to throw a punch or take off. Maybe you’ll settle for somewhere in between.

You run from the Academy. You sprint like hell out of there once you stop denying that you will fail. You know everything is falling down behind you and you can’t bear to see it happen. And whatever the Klingon part of you says, you can’t fight that. So you flee.

But you fight for the Maquis. You fight like hell because you believe in the cause, in the people. Sometimes it feels like a losing battle, and you don’t want to run when the bodies start falling, but you know you will. You will always starting running again, and then you’ll start fighting again. It’s a cycle and you’re sick of it.

(And then there’s Voyager. There’s nowhere to run except back home. There’s no fight except the one back home. You wonder if this is just some seventy-five-year waiting period. This could be your somewhere in between. Maybe it’s the universe giving you a way out of your own fucking head.)


End file.
